Installing the Avantra Server

Before you start an Avantra installation, please ensure to read the release notes for Avantra 23 and use the latest software versions and patches from Avantra.

Installation Notes

The following section is designed to explain some of the common aspects of installing the Avantra solution. Please familiarize yourself with these concepts prior to the software installation.

License: You need a license to run Avantra. Please follow instructions from the Obtaining and Installing the License article to get and install the license, which you will need at the end of the Avantra Server installation process.
Supported Platforms: Please check Avantra Server Components for supported platforms.
Permissions: You must have local administrator permissions (on Microsoft Windows operating systems) or root permissions (on Unix-like operating systems) in order to perform the installation.
Database: Avantra on Microsoft Windows operating systems requires a Microsoft SQL Server as a data store. For product evaluation as well as small-sized installations we recommend installing Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Express Edition.

If you already have a Microsoft SQL Server installation available ( Microsoft SQL Server 2012 or higher) or you are performing a shared installation, please make sure that you enable local and remote TCP/IP connections.

If you plan to run the Avantra Database on a Microsoft SQL Server hosted on a server separate from other Avantra Server components, please ensure that the Avantra Server components have the necessary permissions to access the Microsoft SQL Server.

Avantra on Unix-like operating systems requires a PostgreSQL data store. The installation is described in {https://support.avantra.com/a/solutions/articles/44001810945?lang=en}.

If you intend to deploy your Avantra Server with a major cloud provider, you may want to consider using a database service such as Amazon Web Services Relational Database Service, Microsoft Azure SQL Database service, or Google Cloud Platform Cloud SQL. For Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform, please make sure to use the PostgreSQL variants of the corresponding services. See also this article.
Installation in a Cluster Environment: As a general recommendation, if you plan to install the Avantra Server in a clustered environment, consider creating two virtual servers (or switching groups): one with the RDBMS (Microsoft SQL Server or PostgreSQL, depending on the operating system) containing the Avantra Database, the other one with Avantra Server and Avantra WebUI.

Make sure that during the installation process you choose installation locations that switch properly together with the virtual servers.

During the installation of the Avantra Server, you have the option to stage the Avantra Database on a remotely installed RDBMS.
Security Considerations: Communication between Avantra Agents and Avantra Server is encrypted using HTTPS.

We recommend that communication between Web browsers and the Avantra WebUI is also encrypted using HTTPS. If you plan to use HTTPS communication, please read these knowledge base articles: UI SSL Issues and Use CA signed Certificate for HTTPS in the UI.

Running the UI on port 80/443 (Unix only): On Unix-based systems, port 80 and port 443 are protected; typically only the superuser root can open them. For security reasons, it is not desirable to run the Avantra Server as root. By default, Avantra WebUI uses ports 8080 and 8443. If you wish to have users access Avantra WebUI using the standard HTTP/HTTPS ports, we recommend installing Avantra Server as a non-root user and to redirect ports 80 and 443 to 8080 and 8443 respectively using the operating system’s means.

On Linux, you may use iptables (or ipchains).

Please consult your operating system documentation.

If you run the Avantra Server installer as root, you can configure the Avantra Server and Avantra WebUI to use the standard ports 80 and 443.

If you are using one of the major cloud platforms, there are services available to do the host and port mapping for you, like a load balancer, endpoint services, etc. There is usually no need to run the services as root user in this scenario.

Different Unix flavors commands: The file paths and directory names used within this documentation, as well as the syntax used in operating system files (especially for the crontab) may vary from system to system, or even between different releases or distributions of the same operating system. For further information, please refer to your operating system documentation, e.g. man cron, man crontab, and others, or ask your operating system administrator.

Supported Installation Methods

Avantra can be installed using multiple methods. We recommend using a Linux based operating system with a PostgreSQL database and provide a quick installation method to get you started quickly on a cloud virtual machine. After either installation method, please follow the Post Installation Steps

Using the Avantra Quick Installer

For ease of initial setup, we provide an automated installation option for new systems ONLY on linux. This option will install a single node installation of the latest major Avantra server along with all the dependencies, including PostgreSQL with an Avantra Agent pre-installed on the local machine. If you wish to deviate from this installation we recommend a manual installation following the installation guides below.

The quick installer will take approximately 10-15 minutes and is supported on the following OS types:

SUSE Linux 15 sp3 and above
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and 9
Ubuntu 22.04

To use this method, you will need to follow the instructions to Install using the Quick Installer.

Manual installation

For installations that would like to customize dependencies, choose a specific database or cloud database service, a manual installation needs to be followed.

Follow the appropriate guide for either Unix-like (Linux) or Microsoft Windows installations.

Installation on Kubernetes

From Avantra 23.0, we support installation of Avantra on a Kubernetes cluster in specific circumstances.

Please follow the following installation instructions.

Installing on Kubernetes

Customers who wish to use this method of installation should reach out to Avantra Support for access.

Preparing the Avantra Agent Deployment

You can use the Avantra Server to simplify the initial deployment of the Avantra Agent to each system.

This may be useful to avoid downloading the files from our website over and over again for every Server you install the Avantra Agent on. Instead, you can use a browser or tool like wget or curl to retrieve the files directly from your Avantra Server.

Download the following files from the Support menu of avantra.com:

agent-23.0.n.bin from the AGENT RELEASE 23.0.n section
agent-23.0.n-setup.exe from the AGENT RELEASE 23.0.n section
transports-for-avantra-23.zip from the CONTRIB RELEASE 23.0 section

Save them to the AgentUpdate directory on the Avantra Server, located at %ProgramFiles%\AgentUpdate (on Microsoft Windows operating systems) or /avantra/AgentUpdate (on Unix-like operating systems).

You can access the packages then using the following statements from within your own network:

$ wget http://avantra-server:9050/AgentUpdate/agent-23.0.n.bin

$ curl http://youravantra-server:9050/AgentUpdate/transports-for-avantra-23.zip > transports-for-avantra-23.zip